Deeplinks Blog posts about International

The Polish digital civil rights group Panoptykon Foundation recently published harrowing findings regarding abuses of Poland’s mandatory data retention law. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Panoptykon obtained documents that reveal that in 2011, Polish authorities requested users’ traffic data retained by telcos and ISPs over 1.85 million times—half a million times more than in 2010. These findings underscore fundamental flaws in the Polish mandatory data retention law that was fast-tracked in legislation without public debate in 2009.

Amidst rumors of new website blocking in the West Bank, a more troubling development has emerged: The Palestinian Authority arrested two journalists and a university lecturer last month for newspaper articles and Facebook posts that authorities deemed "slanderous."

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen surprising and significant developments with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in both the US and the EU. This is the first in a series of posts detailing the current state of play. Today, we’re reviewing recent U.S. developments and what we and others are doing to highlight the illegitimacy of this controversial agreement. In February, EFF submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. State Department, seeking a copy of the “Circular 175” memorandum for ACTA, and the accompanying Memorandum of Law – key documents regarding the constitutionality of ACTA. The State Department is due to respond tomorrow.

In Colombia, executive lawmakers are hastily pushing through a new copyright reform law for Congressional approval ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit to Colombia in mid-April for the Summit of the Americas. In doing so, they are skirting existing legislative processes and forcing through a bill that exceeds international and US norms at the cost of Colombian citizens’ rights.

Since the beginning of the year, pro-Syrian-government hackers have steadily escalated the frequency and sophistication of their attacks on Syrian opposition activists. We have reported on severalTrojans, which covertly install spying software onto the infected computer, as well as phishing attacks which steal YouTube and Facebook login credentials.